Lt. Wm. Harrison, Commanding Officer, HMCS TRENTONIAN.

Many letters were sent home from Royal Canadian Navy sailors during World War II. On occasion a letter would be sent from the Commanding officer of a Canadian ship to the namesake community that supported the ship.

This letter by Wm. Harrison, CO of HMCS TRENTONIAN was written to the City of Trenton shortly after the Normandy invasion.

The letter is unique in its description of the actions of his ship during the invasion operations. He describes their activities as monotonous, when in fact TRENTONIAN was the senior ship of the first convoy to leave port on the NEPTUNE Timetable, arriving off the beaches with sixty derelict ships to be sunk as breakwaters off the five beachheads and form the Mulberry Harbours. The sailors in this Canadian corvette watched German aircraft bomb landing ships nearby, experienced thousands of allied aircraft flying overhead, felt the concussion of allied battleships firing broadside salvos of heavy metal inshore so close to their ship that dishes were broken. TRENTONIAN came into contact with German E-Boats and shortly after a sonar contact was made, a torpedo was reported in the water nearby. By far the most dangerous and tragic incident came the night of 12-13 June when, TRENTONIAN was accidentally attacked by an American destroyer, firing eighty rounds of 5 inch ammunition at the corvette and the cable laying ship they were escorting, killing several of the crew in the cableship and wounding many other.

HMCS TRENTONIAN
c/o GPO London
July 11th 1944

Dear Miss Farley

Thanks for your letter of the 1st of June which I just received. Also a parcel of records arrived today in very good condition. We have now got a gramophone or rather a radiogram which is connected up with five loud speakers in different parts of the ship, so everyone gets the benefit of either broadcast or records. So far we have had rather a scarcity of records and the same thing came over and over again, but now we shall have lots of variety. I must congratulate whoever chose the records. I have just been looking through them and all the sailors favorites are there. I can hear “Waltzing Matilda” now as I write. This evening we will broadcast them through the loudspeaker on the mast so the ships alongside will get the benefit. The Victrola has not yet turned up but it will probably arrive sometime.

We have just had a short spell in port and all the crew had two days leave which the majority chose to spend dodging “buzz bombs” in London. Previous to that nobody had been off the ship for 42 days, since 22nd of May, so the break did a lot of good.

As you probably know, we took part in the invasion of Normandy and although it wasn’t as exciting as we expected it to be, there was great deal of hard work attached to it and to subsequent operations which are not of course yet finished. The censors have very kindly told us that we can divulge the fact of being connected with the invasion and I think full advantage has been taken of the lifting of this restriction, so you have probably heard some highly coloured tales which would perhaps conflict with our rather monotonous recollections.

Our mail is still very scrappy some letters come in a couple of weeks and others take five or six weeks. However, I suppose we’re lucky to be getting so much. When the North African business was taking place, we didn’t get any mail in the Mediterranean for about three months. This has been a big improvement.

Please tell the Grade X pupils how much we appreciate the records.  They are really very popular already although they haven’t all been tried yet. Thanking you all. 

I remain
Yours very sincerely

W.E. Harrison[i]

HMCS TRENTONIAN arrives off Juno Beach with convoy astern, by Marc Magee.

[i] City of Quinte West Public Library, Hazel Farley Collection, Letter W.E. Harrison to Hazel Farley 11 July 1944

This collection of letters have been gathered from the crew of HMCS TRENTONIAN and have been reproduced by Roger Litwiller in his book, White Ensign Flying, The Story of HMCS TRENTONIAN, published by Dundurn Publishing in 2014.

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